Works by Ellen Priest
Ellen Priest is an American abstract artist who is inspired by music and most notably by jazz. She lives and works near Philadelphia.
Education
Priest received her Master of Divinity from Yale University Divinity School in 1977 with a dual qualification in Christianity and the Visual Arts. As an artist, she is largely self-taught.
Technique
Ellen Priest's jazz-based abstractions balance directly on the border between painting and sculpture – vibrantly colored spatial illusions when reading from a distance and 3-D relief constructions of layered, collaged paper when seen up close.
Inspiration
Jazz has been her subject matter since 1990. Drawing is always central to her process, as well as standing on its own.
The artist's inspiration comes from surprisingly diverse sources:
• Life-long visual art influences include Cezanne's late watercolors, Matisse's color and compositional structure, and Abstract Expressionism, especially the paintings of Willem De Kooning and Joan Mitchell.
• The rhythmic and harmonic structures in jazz and related African and Latin American music.
• Her athletic pursuits, since her paintings are really about movement. Priest's favorite sports are "balance sports," where motion depends on weight and balance thrown off-centre, often in response to terrain, like skiing.
Notable distinctions
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation has twice awarded Priest major grants to support her innovation.
Relevant quote
In July 2010, art critic Victoria Donohoe wrote about Priest?s work in two Wilmington exhibitions for The Philadelphia Inquirer: “Priest deliberately blurs the boundary between painting and jazz in her Venezuelan Suite painted collages. These use form as a language of music... Seeing jazz as full of joy and energy, able to transform sadness, Priest uses it successfully here to create materialized movement in actual worlds of coloured space.”
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2015
Jazz Cubano: Color and Paper Constructions, Saint Peter’s Church, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54 th Street, New York, New York. March 21 - May 3.
2013
Ellen Priest , Delaware Division of the Arts Gallery , Wilmington, Delaware.
2012
Jazz: Thinking Out Loud, Reaching for Song, Joint painting/jazz project with Berklee College of Music , Boston, Massachusetts. Residency: November 2010.
Improvising on Jazz: Ellen Priest’s Paintings on Collaged Paper, Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School , New Haven, Connecticut.
2010
Jazz: Improvisations on the ‘ Venezuelan Suite,’ Delaware Division of the Arts Gallery , Wilmington, Delaware.
2009
The Art and the Jazz,, Gail Pierson Gallery, Cape May, New J ersey.
2007
Jazz Paintings on Paper: Improvisations on the ‘Venezuelan Suite, ’ The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania
2006
The Jazz Series: Paintings on Paper , The Dupont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in conjunction with Carspe cken Scott Gallery Wilmington, Delaware.
2004
Jazz: Paintings on Paper, The Alva Gallery, New London, Connecticut. Jazz: The Brubeck Series , Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. In conjunction with performance by Dave Brubeck and Singing City Choir.
2001
The Jazz Series: Paintings on Paper , Mellon Arts Center, The Choate Sch ool, Wallingford, Connecticut.
2000
The Jazz Series: Paintings on Paper, Gallery 10 Ltd. Washington D.C.
1983
Soul Devils: Works on paper , J. Hoffman Gallery, Kent, Connecticut.
1982
Soul Devils: Oils and Works on Paper , Berkeley Center, Yale Divinity School. Sponsored by Department of Religion and the Arts, Yale Divinity School.
1979
Works on Paper , Mellon Arts Center, The Choate School, Wallingford, Connecticut.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016
"On another note: The intersection of Art", Yale Art School
2014
35 th Anniversary Exhibition, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, Delaware.
2010
SPECTRUM: Contemporary Color Abstraction , Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE. Curated by Carina Evangelista.
2001
Form and Color , The Alva Gallery, New London, Connecticut.
Artist's Choice 3 rd Street Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
“Chapter 7: Ellen Priest: Seeing the World” Camille Colatosti, To Be an Artist: Musicians, Visual Artists, Writers and Dancers Speak. © 2012 E. L. Kurdyla Publishing, LLC, Baltimore, Maryland. (Dr. Colatosti is Dean of Graduate Studies at Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts.)
2012
Delaware Division of the Arts Established Artist Fellowship
2010
Delaware Division of the Arts Opportunity Grant
2007
Pollock - Krasner Foundation Grant
2001
Pollock - Krasner Foundation Grant